


Coming Home Once Again

by AwFuckWhatDoIPutHere



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Adult Frisk (Undertale), Bad Puns, Brother-Sister Relationships, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, Family Dynamics, Family Feels, Father-Son Relationship, Female Frisk (Undertale), Gen, Grief/Mourning, Magic-User Frisk (Undertale), Mother-Daughter Relationship, Mother-Son Relationship, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Platonic Relationships, Protectiveness, Regret, Siblings, Soul Magic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:34:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23279458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AwFuckWhatDoIPutHere/pseuds/AwFuckWhatDoIPutHere
Summary: Frisk stumbled into the Underground as a kid, and was raised by Toriel without ever feeling the need to return "home".Now, instead of Toriel being on the receiving end of terrible knock-knock jokes, teenage Frisk instead finds another reason to sit by the door that leads to the rest of the world.Of course, from here, things seriously escalate.I poured my heart and soul into this story, and don't worry, even if it doesn't seem like it, this is, in fact, Undertale, and I have planned VERY far ahead for this story, so just stay patient.
Relationships: Alphys/Undyne (Undertale), Everyone & Everyone, Flowey (Undertale) & Original Character(s), Frisk & Sans (Undertale), Frisk (Undertale) & Original Character(s), Papyrus (Undertale) & Original Character(s), Sans (Undertale) & Original Character(s), Toriel (Undertale) & Original Character(s)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 18





	1. Just Come With Me

**Author's Note:**

> How could I live on  
> With what I've done  
> You took me in, showed me love  
> When I had nowhere to run  
> You offered me your everything  
> And I threw it all away  
> My indecision keeps me  
> Unaligned
> 
> -Undertale Neutral Song - Unaligned  
> by NateWantsToBattle

The rusty railing of the fire escape tore his palm, and he watched as a bright red drop of blood fell from his hand. Fell, and fell, and fell, until it hit the sidewalk twenty meters underneath him. Thank god it wasn’t his left hand. The one he was carrying the payment in.   
He had never really liked heights, but it was on this rooftop that the guy who had the necessary identity cards to get on a bus without a parent told him to meet up.   
He had volunteered to go instead of Tasha or Elliot, because he had the best chance to defend himself, should something go wrong. Besides, he knew he would never forgive himself if something happened to his friends. This was all his idea, anyways. It would only be fair if he went. 

Above him, the grey sky only seemed to get more depressing to look at by the second. He could feel small drops of rain hit is face, and sometimes he had to be careful to not slip on the metal fire escape. 

Thankfully, he probably wouldn’t get an infected wound from the cut on his hand. He had always had an extraordinary resistance to all the diseases on the surface. Maybe it was because he had had a different diet in the Before? It didn’t really matter now. But it was a nice reminder of his old life. It reminded him he had somewhere to go, somewhere where he would fit in. 

It seemed like walking up the fire escape took at least three times longer than it should be. It just kept going up and up and up…   
Meanwhile, he really had the time to _think_ about what he was doing. He knew that his plan was crazy, but he was scared that this was his only shot. Besides, he had his friends with him.   
So what could go wrong?   
Everything, apparently. 

He finally got to the rooftop, but he was almost about to fall right off again when he saw who was waiting for him. The only reason he didn’t just fall straight to his death, was the fact that he had a good grip on the cement at the edge of the roof, which he had grabbed to crawl over. 

Jason was standing in the middle of the rooftop with gloomy eyes. There wasn’t even a hint of a smile on his lips before he saw him, and an obviously fake one glided over them.   
The older boy was wearing a grey hoodie and a torn pair of sweatpants. He must have lost his jacket somewhere, because he couldn’t see it anywhere on the roof. 

“Heya.” Jason’s voice was cold, but it really seemed like he tried to sound happy for him.   
“You’ve been busy, huh?” Jason glanced at the briefcase with all the money that he, Tasha, and Elliot had gathered over the last few months. It was torn, and looked like it was around a hundred years old. But inside were all the pennies they had found on the street, cash they had earned by running errands, and of course, the money Tasha and him had stolen from the cup holders of expensive cars, or pick-pocketed from men in expensive suits. Everything mattered to them.   
And just barely a week ago, it had finally been enough for fake identity cards, supplies, and three bus tickets to Ebott.   
“Buddy, will you please put that down?” He gestured to the briefcase again . “Then we can talk this out.”   
He made no gesture to put it down.   
Jason sighed.   
“Sariel, I know that things are hard here, but you _can’t go.”_ He sounded increasingly more frustrated with every word.   
“ _Please_ listen to reason. I’ve seen this happen before!” Jason’s voice sounded strained, like he tried to hold back tears. However, that really caught his attention. Because he had _never_ seen Jason cry before. Never, in the six years he had been in this place, had he ever seen him cry. It was frightening, to say the least.   
“Kids like you get sick and tired of this place , so you pack up everything you have, and leave us all behind.” Jason yelled now, and he could see the _hurt_ in his eyes.   
“And you know what, _buddy?”_ Jason snarled the last words. “You _die._ Or worse, you try to come back. And then they _remove you._ Because they don’t think that this place is _fit to raise children._ ”   
Jason began walking towards him, but he was too stunned to react.   
“They remove you from **_everything_ ** that you’ve ever known…” Some of Jason’s anger seemed to fade. Instead, wretched sobs, full of grief and denial, hacked themselves out of the older boy’s throat.   
“And there is _nothing,_ I can do about it.”   
As quickly as the tears had come, they disappeared again. Jason whipped his head up and looked him directly in the eye with a half-mad look.   
“But this time, it’s different.” He knew what was about to come, maybe even before Jason did himself.   
“ _I can stop you.”_

He leapt out of the way, abandoning the briefcase in favor of the reduced weight. Thankfully, Jason didn’t seem to even notice it. He just threw himself into a rolling fall and crashed into the cement railing of the rooftop.   
With a grunt, he was up again. Sariel only had about two seconds to see the cold look in his eyes before another one of Jason’s attacks forced him to dodge.   
His technique was everything he had learned in the past six years, mixed with the faint memories he had of his mother dodging various attacks from unfamiliar monsters at home. But after a while, even that wasn’t enough. Jason was just too fast to keep up with like this.   
He had to do something different… 

An idea came to mind. However, he pushed it down as quickly as it resurfaced.   
_No._ He thought. _No, I promised that I would never try to hurt them like that._   
_Like how_ **_he_ ** _promised, to never hurt you?_ Replied a voice in his mind.   
He didn’t have any more time to think about it, though.   
He had been slacking off in his internal conflict. And Jason jumped at the opportunity.   
He knew that he wouldn’t be able to dodge the kick Jason sent towards his legs and the fight or flight instinct instantly kicked in.   
Sariel felt a tug from somewhere deep in his chest, and only had time to think _No_ before the power lashed out by itself.   
He could suddenly _feel_ Jason’s very being. It was warm. Full of love. However, it was paranoid too, like a wild animal, trapped in a corner.   
That was all he felt, before a faint blue aura manifested around Jason mid-air, and something threw him all the way across the roof. Crashing into the opposite railing. 

He almost sobbed. Because he just broke his own promise. Ever since **that** happened, he had been hell-bent on suppressing **that** power. He knew how much damage it could do. Now he had hurt _Jason-_   
Jason was up in an instant and right back to attacking him.   
The look in his eyes had only become even colder, and it was like seeing this side of him made the power press on from his insides even more.   
_This is not Jason anymore._ Said the voice from before.   
And no matter how much he tried to deny it, that was how he felt too. Seeing this cold, distant look in Jason’s eyes made him seem like an entirely different person. This didn’t feel like the Jason that would buy him a new jacket at the mall, or show him which parts of the city were the least dangerous to go shopping.   
This wasn’t Jason anymore.   
And that made it easier to attack him. 

The next power surge came willingly, and that made it more powerful than before. Because he had no idea how to control it, so his only option was just giving it free reins over his body and hoping nothing went wrong.   
Once again, it threw him across the rooftop, smashing him into the concrete with a sickening crack.   
This time though, Jason laid still.   
Suddenly, fear overtook his body. Raw, unfiltered, FEAR.   
Because what if he had killed Jason?   
He didn’t want to kill Jason. He just wanted to leave this dump with his friends and never come back. 

But Jason, by some goddamn miracle, got up on his feet again and stared him down.   
Sariel winced when he saw the thin line of blood running down from Jason’s brow. It poured into his eyes, and it seemed like it was destroying his vision, because the older boy’s next few steps were unbalanced and uncoordinated. 

Still, he tried to talk.   
“Sari… Sari please!” Jason wiped away the blood on his face, and finally seemed to pull himself together.   
“Come home. To your _real_ home. I know… that it seems bad now…” Jason swallowed something, and looked like he took a deep breath. “But in a few years, I can get us all out of here… When I turn eighteen. Then we can… move to the coast, or the country… But you can’t go. Not now.”   
Sariel wanted to cry. Because this was what he should be dreaming about, wasn’t it? Leaving with Jason, just like they had talked about so many times.   
To find a home. A _real_ home.   
But he couldn’t. He had a family to go back to in the mountain. He had to see his mom again. No matter what it took.   
“I’m sorry. But I have to go home. I promise that I won’t be a burden anymore. I won’t come back. I promise you.” He felt like he was choking on tears, but he still backed away from Jason. 

“Buddy…” Sariel looked up, surprised, and a sympathetic look on Jason’s face greeted him.   
“I _don’t_ want you to leave Sariel...” He tried to smile, but it more came off as a crazy grin, so he gave up on it and just spread his arms out.   
“I promise you, you _aren’t a burden._ Just come here.” Jason fell to his knees. If it was because of his injuries, exhaustion, or just to match Sariel’s height, he couldn’t tell. But he still ran forwards, the tears now streaming down his cheeks.   
Jason caught him in the hug, and groaned as Sariel’s weight slammed into him.   
“There there, now you can forget them…” Sariel instantly tensed up when he heard Jason’s whisper, but Jason didn’t seem to notice.   
“They aren’t real… But we _are._ ” 

**_NO_ **

He didn’t exactly know what happened. Just that one moment he was in Jason’s arms, and the next, he was standing three meters from the railing, and Jason was nowhere to be found.   
A sudden horror filled him, and he stormed to the railing that Jason had crashed into.   
He leaned so far over the side of the building that he was afraid that he just might fall off, but he didn’t think more about it than that. 

His eyes franticly scanned the street below him, praying that he wouldn’t find what he was searching for.   
But he did. 

Jason’s hood his face, but he could see how his arm bent in an unnatural angle. And the puddle of blood forming beneath him was hard to ignore too. 

It took everything in him to avoid throwing up. Instead, he ran over to where the briefcase was lying in a little puddle.   
He reached out to his “power”, held it in an iron grip, and shook it with all the rage he could muster. 

**_DID YOU DO THIS?_ **

But he could feel it. The power wasn’t what had thrown Jason off of the roof. 

It was _his_ entire fault. 

He stormed as quickly as possible down the fire escape, away from where he knew Jason’s body was laying on the cement. Back to the orphanage. 

They had to get out of the city. And _fast._

If he had stuck around long enough to watch as the last drop of life left Jason’s body, then he would have seen the small, bright yellow glimpse cover his body. But it didn’t disappear, instead, it curled up like a snake, and made its way down the street, directly towards where it knew he had ran. 


	2. I Hope You'll Have A Good Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Every good rhyme starts with "Once Upon A Time"  
> Long ago, far away  
> Centuries before (y)our day...  
> Humans lived, monsters roamed.  
> Both shared earth and sky as home
> 
> "Once Upon A Time" - A Nursery Rhyme  
> by Dearheart42

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a prologue! (Of the prologue) I promise I will get to the actual story soon enough!  
> (I told you this was connected to Undertale)

Jeffrey’s life shattered on his tenth birthday. 

Because their parents just couldn’t deal with an over-enthusiastic daughter AND a son that was just as hyperactive, but less enthusiastic, they made their butler drive them to the mountain outside of town for a few hours. 

He could still remember what Christine had looked like when she sat in the back seat with him. 

Her legs were swinging back and forth over the high seat, and a huge grin revealed the gap in her teeth that had been there for about a week, ever since she decided it was a good idea to see if she could balance herself on the apple tree’s top branch. 

They were wearing identical shorts, but Christine was wearing a pair of trod-out sandals, which might have strangely disappeared overnight on behalf of their parents if Christine didn’t keep those things on her all around the clock. 

A red bandana held down her blonde curls, it was the one she’d won from her karate teacher, that if she managed to knee him in the stomach, he would buy her anything she wanted for five bucks.   
Somewhere deep down, Jeffrey was pretty sure that he hadn’t let her win. 

That teacher was more like a father to Christine, than their own father was, and Jeffrey was happy as long as she was happy.   
Who would need other family members if they just had each other? 

Bruce opened the door, and Christine immediately stormed out. Dragging him with her. 

The side of Mount Ebott towered over them. 

Even though they were already high enough to see the entire city in the valley under them, there was still a great deal of the infamous mountain, which held itself over them. From this side of the mountain, it looked completely flat. Jeffrey faintly recalled hearing something about a mudslide a few hundred years back, that had then completely covered the then, very small town in the valley, and that was the reason the mountain looked the way it did now. 

“Come on Jeff! I know you’ll love it, we just have to find a tree, and then see if we can get higher than the mountain itself!”   
Somehow, he managed to convince her that that was a bad idea. Because that was what he was, right? They were to halves of the same whole, and if they wanted to make it, he needed to balance her out, and reverse. 

“Hey! Come look at what I found!”   
He had been trotting along the edge of the forest, looking for berries, when Christine called for him. 

When he looked over, she was pointing into something that just looked like another little roughness in the mountain.   
And yet, Christine looked like she was about to burst with excitement. 

“What is it Chris?”   
She didn’t answer, just waved him closer.   
Curious, he did as she wanted him to, and they ended up huddled together against a small crack in the stone, just big enough for them to squish into.   
If you didn’t happen to stumble upon it, like Christine must have, it was barely visible from the rest of this side of the mountain.   
Christine still had that beaming smile, as she pressed her ear as close as possible to the crack, totally silent. 

Now, he was more confused than ever.   
“Chris, what are you-“   
“Listen, just listen!” 

So he shut his mouth, because Christine usually knew what she was doing.   
He was starting to reconsider that, though.   
Then he heard it. 

Under the faint sound of a waterfall, the wind in the trees, and even the occasional confused cicada in the heavy summer air, there was a faint drop of water. 

From the crack. 

Christine must have seen the exact moment he heard it, because she immediately began shaking him like a madman.   
“I knew it” I knew it! You can hear it too! And you know what that means, right?” 

It felt like all air had been sucked from his lungs, but somehow, he managed to croak up an answer.   
“There’s a _cave_ in there.”   
It came out in unison, but Christine sounded like this was the turning point of their lives. 

Ironic, really. 

It wasn’t long before they were both scooting their way through the narrow cut in the mountain. With Christine leading the way, of course.   
The crack slightly fell, and he could feel his feet slip on the ground, as narrow lines of water streamed downward.   
It was pitch-black in the narrow cut, but luckily, he had managed to convince Christine that it was a good idea to hold hands while they made their way forward. 

His gut was on high alert, but Christine seemed unbothered by their surroundings.   
They walked for about two minutes, the path going up and down, but luckily without any sideways, before they stepped out of the claustrophobic crack. 

The cave they stepped into was wide, with vines spreading over the ground, and the sun shining in from a hole above them. Christine looked ready to jump out of her skin with excitement. 

He immediately saw that the way they had come there wasn’t the only one. On the other side of the cave, there was another entrance, where sunlight fell in and lit up the cave from the thousands of droplets. 

“Look Jeff! Look!” She said as she franticly pointed at the middle of the cave.   
And that was when he saw it. 

In the middle of the cave, where all the vines seemed to sprout from, there was a hole.   
It was rough around the edges, but where the little stream fell into the deep below, the stone was smooth and slippery.   
There wasn’t more than five or six meters across, but to Jeffrey, it felt endless.   
He hadn’t noticed before, but now he heard the dripping all around them.   
It echoed from the walls, from the puddles on the ground, from the pit where it all disappeared down.   
Water surrounded them. 

“Chris!” He panted, as he grabbed her hand.   
She spun around, and looked at him with big, confused eyes.   
“Yeah? What is it?” Her eyes fell down again, and she gave him a little grin.   
Suddenly, she snickered.   
“Are you _scared?”_   
“No!” He exclaimed, feeling blood streaming to his cheeks.   
“I’m not scared! I just… shouldn’t we turn around now?”   
“Come onnnn!” She whined.   
“This is so exciting! It bet’cha no one has been in here for a hundred years!”   
“Well… okay….” 

When he looked back at that day, he wished he could have just pulled her out of that cave. Gotten her back to the car, and just gotten as far away from that mountain as possible. 

He didn’t see her slip, just heard the scream.   
Much to his unhappiness, she had chosen to go all the way to the edge of the hole, just to see what was down there, while he crept up against the wall and kept close to their exit.   
She must have stepped on a slippery stone, or lost her balance, because next thing he knew, the water wasn’t the only thing that echoed in the cave.   
Faster than he ever thought he could go, he stormed to the hole without any fear of what he might see in there.   
The scream was already fading, and all that was left of his sister, was a piece of the red bandana that she loved so much, caught on a sharp stone, too far down for him to reach. 

* * *

Their parents held Christine’s funeral less than a month later. 

It was a beautiful day. Jeffrey only spotted two or three stray clouds during the memorial service, which they held outside. 

There were a lot of people at the funeral, and he didn’t recognize half of them. Most were just his father’s ‘connections’ that wanted to suck up to him more than they already did. Though, he did see Christine’s self-defense teacher at the back of the crowd. Red cap pulled far down over the bulky man’s eyes. If there was one thing that Christine loved more than throwing herself into whatever danger she could find, it was probably fighting. He even remembered, that she had a pair of fighting gloves hidden away under her bed.   
Since their father was already reluctant to let her go to fighting lessons, then she needed to hide them if she didn’t want him to flip out. 

If he glanced up, he could see the apple tree that he and Christine had used the entirety of last fall exploring every square centimeter of, dreaming themselves to a place, far, far away. Full of adventures and mystical creatures. 

“Christine Elizabeth Church was a girl that I am sure we all will miss dearly.” The pastor’s voice was dry and unfeeling. Jeffrey wondered just how many times he had held a funeral service for a child.   
“And I am sure that her soul would wish for everyone that held her dear to be happy, even when she is now gone.” Jeffrey’s knuckles turned white.   
“Christine was a positive and energetic child, and though it is always a shame when a child leaves this world prematurely, I think this time is an even greater loss for us all.”   
_How could he say that? How could he say that, like it was recited out of a fucking book?_   
_Christine always hated books._   
“And now, I will give the word to the father of this little girl.” 

Many hours later, Jeffrey found himself standing at Christine’s presumed “grave”. Covered in a fresh layer of dirt.   
Except, it felt empty. Because he knew, those six feet underneath him, there was nothing more than an empty casket. 

No matter how much he had begged and pleaded for his parents to send someone down there to get Christine, they had blatantly refused.   
“I know that you miss Christine as much as we do Jeffrey, but we simply _can’t do that!”_ His father’s words ringed in his ears.   
Normally, he would have went to mom, but she had locked herself up in Christine’s room, and had refused to come out for hours, so his father was the only man he could plead.   
“We have no idea how deep that hole is. And we can’t possibly just send someone to their death like that. That’s something money can’t buy!” 

He wanted to scream. He wanted to throw punches at his father. **_Make_** him get Christine, but the man just wouldn’t budge.   
“ **Then why are you sitting on all that money** **if** **you won’t use it to get her back?!”**   
His father didn’t answer the question, just made the housemaid put him to sleep. 

And that was why he was standing here, with a bouquet of wrinkled flowers over a grave that meant **_nothing._ **

He collapsed against the grave. Wretched sobs running through him. But no one was paying attention to him, so he could deal with his grief peacefully. 

He sat beside the cold block of marble, with the words “ _Beloved sister and daughter”_ written on it, and closed his eyes.   
He tried to imagine that he was in another place. Maybe the beach. Just anywhere else than _here,_ and tried to imagine it wasn’t a gravestone beside him, but rather his sister, with an arm around his back, playing with his golden-blond hair. 

_“I’m going to get you back.”_ He whispered to nothing.   
_“I promise. I’m going to give you a real resting place.”_

* * *

And that was why he found himself standing _here._ After fourteen years of grief. 

Ever since Christine’s death, he had grown even more distant from his family than he had been already.   
His mother rarely showed her face, much less talked to him. And his father rarely spoke to him at all anymore. Just locked himself up in his office. 

Then, Theodore was born two years later. 

He wanted to love his little brother. He really did. And their parents certainly loved Theodore. 

He just felt like the little affection that they left for him after Christine’s death had been sucked out of his life as soon as his little brother came into this world.   
He wanted to believe that it was because he looked so much like Christine. The same blond hair, the same blue eyes, and even the same little smiling hole as his twin.   
That it was simply less painful for them to look at Theodore, who had their grandmother’s red hair, and their father’s green eyes. But he knew that that wasn’t true. 

He had almost been grateful when his father sent him off to college across the country.   
But it was now that he and Leo decided it was time to live up to his promise.   
It wasn’t like he had a lot of money for himself, but it was just enough to make the trip back and the equipment they needed without putting anything suspicious on his father’s credit card bill. 

He hadn’t told his parents that he had come back to Ebott this summer. They didn’t need to know. 

He hadn’t spoken to them in so long anyways. 

Besides, Leo had family there, so at least they had a place to stay. 

Jeffrey wondered how they were doing. What Theodore looked like by now.   
He hadn’t seen his little brother since Theodore was ten, and he had come back to the family house for summer break.   
Last time he’d been there, it had been too painful to see how much Theodore resembled Christine. 

Though Jeffrey and Christine had been twins, there was some resemblance between her and Theodore that there hadn’t been between them. Like the tiny birthmark above Theodore’s left eyebrow, or the way he swung his arms when he ran. 

“Are you sure we should do this dude? Don’t you think that the bones might have decayed or something?” 

He met Leo in college, and after warming up to him, told him about Christine’s death and his plans to get her remains back.   
He had expected Leo to freak out. His wish wasn’t exactly what people expected from a quiet dude who looked like he might sit in a tree all day and stare at nothing, but he just quietly accepted his bizarre story, and Jeffrey was more than grateful at that.   
It turned out, that they had grown up less than twenty kilometers away from each other, and that was why Leo had even offered his help to get Christine back in the first place.   
They were making their way up the path that he knew led to the most direct way to the hole, carrying all the necessary equipment for mountain climbing. 

“I’m sure. Besides, I just need to have _something.”_ He replied.   
Something from her. Something that could remind him that she’d even existed. Hadn’t been completely erased from the world. 

“Ah, great, so we don’t need to drag a whole body back.” He didn’t respond to that. 

Leo was humming to the tune of some song that he could vaguely remember having heard before. 

To kill time, he decided to ask about it. 

“Hey Leo, what're you singing?”   
Leo was walking in front of him, and he turned around with a little surprised _hm?_ Before answering. 

After a little moment, he seemed to understand what he was talking about.   
“Oh that one! It’s an old nursery rhyme. You know, about that myth that monsters live under this mountain? I’m sure you’ve heard it in preschool or something. Want me to sing it?” 

Jeffrey nodded, and his friend began singing the old nursery rhyme while softly clapping his hands in tact to the beat. 

“Every good rhyme starts with, ‘Once upon a time’” Leo’s steadfast claps were a comfort in the damp warmth on the mountainside. 

“Long ago, far away, centuries before our day.” A bird flew over their heads, and its thrill echoed against the boulders. Jeffrey found himself praying to a god he didn’t even believe in for this to go well. That he would just find _anything_ to take back. 

“Humans lived, monsters roamed. Both shared earth and sky as home.”   
He didn’t want to think about it anymore, so he began clapping in sync with Leo. 

“Yet this peace, came undone.” _Clap_ _clap_ _clap._   
“War was waged and humans won!” _Clap clap clap._   
He had never noticed before how great Leo was at singing. The young, black haired man sang the rhyme with ease. 

“Forced below, monsters fell. Humans trapped them with a spell.”   
Now he began to remember small snippets of the lyrics. And quietly, he joined in on the song. 

“Listen, children, to my words:”   
A painful stab went through him, when he suddenly remembered a faithful summer evening, where Christine had sung this exact song.   
Still, he kept up the façade and continued clapping. 

“Ebott will eat you, beware the curse!”   
_I really should have listened to this, huh?_ He thought. 

He sang the rest of the song with Leo, and suddenly, he found himself standing at the entrance of a familiar cave. 

“It’s here…” Jeffrey was breathless, because it _was_ here.   
They’d come in from the other cave entrance, and where the crack Christine had pulled them through had been before, there was now nothing other than sprouting vines. Not even nature wanted a repeat of the mistakes that happened that day.   
Other than that, it was like nothing had changed. He swore that even the puddles on the ground were the same as they had been last time. 

“You sure dude? It doesn’t look like a place anyone in their right mind would explore.”   
Jeffrey laughed bitterly, and while Leo still looked around, began making the preparations he needed to (hopefully) get to the bottom of this hole and back with _something_ that wouldn’t make her grave feel so meaningless. 

“Christine wasn’t in her right mind when she did what she did. Besides, last time I was here, there must’ve been algae or something on the rocks. Something that made her fall. So we have to be careful. Got it?” He said over his shoulder while Leo still looked around the cave.   
“Got it.” Leo replied after a second of hesitation.   
  
Hesitantly, Leo stopped staring at the cave, and squatted to help him ram the iron rods into the stone. 

While they worked, Leo tried to spark up a conversation.   
“Do you think that it’s true? I mean, that myth, with the monsters sealed underground?”   
He stopped what he was doing, and thought before he answered.   
“Maybe. I mean, they couldn’t be all that bad, right? We did coexist with them for what, a few thousand years?” He realized what he was saying, and laughed bitterly.   
“Who am I kidding? We don’t live in a fairy tale.” 

_Maybe,_ he thought to himself, _maybe_ _I just wanted her to be greeted by someone. If she actually survived that fall._

A little over twenty minutes later, he was ready. 

Leo must have seen his tense expression and thought it was because of the height, because while working on the last few safety measures, he started to speak again.   
“Chill dude. Aren’t you the one who climbed his way up twenty meters of _ice?_ If anyone can do this, it’s gotta be you.” 

It was true. When he was in college, a few of his friends who had equally rich parents that didn’t care about them, had invited him to come mountains with them. There, he had found his love for ice climbing. 

Just letting the adrenaline wipe everything from your system, and letting the primal instincts take over? It was drugging. 

And it didn’t hurt that it was drizzling away his father’s funds either. 

“Okay, I think we’re ready.” He could see that Leo’s shoulders tensed up, but still managed to keep up a cool façade. 

He pulled one extra time on the ropes, which were supposed to keep him from joining his sister in the afterlife.   
He checked that the bag fastened to his sitting seat wouldn’t slip off, and then, he made his way into the bottomless pit. 

It took hours. And that wasn’t just some illusion created by the seemingly endless darkness. He had a watch that could light up in the dark, and he concluded that this little trip took him just about ninety minutes. 

Even though the darkness had seemed impenetrable from up there, he never lost sight of the sunlight when he looked up from the pit. 

It was strangely comforting to know that she didn’t die in complete darkness. 

Finally, he began to be able to see the bottom. 

He could hear water dripping from the narrow hole’s sides, into a much larger cave. 

At first, he thought that the little sunlight that made its way all the way down here was reflecting off the water at the bottom, yet, as he got closer, it seemed less and less like water, and more and more like… 

Flowers? 

Sure enough, now, he could see that a blanket of golden flowers, which he assumed must have been oversized buttercups, covered the bottom of the pit.   
But that wasn’t even the weirdest of it. 

Because even though it was blurry, and extremely small from where he hung, he could see a little white spot, moving through the golden layer of flowers.

At first, he couldn’t believe his eyes. 

* * *

A _kid._

A kid, who couldn’t be more than four of five. Who was playing in the golden flowers without a care in the world. 

“Am I _tripping?”_ He asked himself.   
Had he eaten something he couldn’t handle? Had it really been a good idea to have three cups of coffee instead of breakfast?   
Was this just his grief, fucking with his brain, making him see kids that weren’t there. 

The boy didn’t notice him before he landed on the flowerbed. 

Now that he was closer, he could see that he had a blue shirt, with two purple stripes on the front. Where the hell had he gotten those. 

There, he looked around, and stared at him with big, blue eyes. That weren’t full of fear, but something like…   
Curiosity?   
The kid began moving, and he didn’t even realize what he was doing before the kid seemed to just… make a pillar underneath himself until he was high enough to pat Jeffrey’s head.   
Jeffrey didn’t even react. Because _what the actual fuck?_ Did his brain just imagine physical touch? Did he just make up a vision of some kid fucking _making a pillar under himself?_   
Apparently, because the next thing the kid said was even more bonkers than he could even imagine. 

“You don’t look like them.” The kid’s voice was unsettling, but not scary.   
“You look like me. But I can feel you. So you have to be real. Right?” 

“Uhh,” He replied “yeah. I’m real… I think?” 

The kid grinned. A toothy grin. Yeah, he couldn’t be more than five. 

Suddenly, he realized what he should be doing.   
It didn’t matter how the kid got here, or who he was, or even what the hell he’d just done with the ground. All that was important was to get him away from whatever this place was. For them both to get back to the surface.   
Before the kid could even react, he skootched him from the ground, and placed him in the bag that had been supposed to hold what was left of Christine.   
_God. Christine._

The bag could hold several hundred kilograms, and it could easily fit him.   
Of course, the kid immediately began squirming and shouting. But he couldn’t make out the words.   
Quickly, he pulled on the rope. Signaling Leo to pull him _up_ again.   
By the time they got to the top again, Jeffrey was already hyperventilating. Because _what the fuck?!_ What had he just done? Why did he take the kid with him? What was he going to do?   
When they finally got up, the kid much have passed out. He didn’t know from _what,_ exactly, but it probably had something to do with the different air quality. 

“Finally!” Leo shouted when he saw him.   
“It took you so long! I thought you died or… something…”   
Leo finally seemed to notice that the bag was very human-looking.   
“Did you…” _Oh God._ The look on his face. It was the look of someone who wouldn’t be sleeping peacefully the next few weeks.   
“It _wasn’t her!”_ He yelled. Because it wasn’t. This was a way bigger problem than what they had to deal with at the start.   
“It was a _kid,_ Leo.” Now, Leo looked even more horrified than he’d been before.   
“I found a _kid_ down there!”   
“ _What…_ _”_

A few minutes later, they’d gotten him out of the bag.   
He was still unconscious, but Jeffrey could see where tears had dried on his cheeks.   
“ _What the fuck man?!”_   
Leo’s reaction was fitting for both of them.   
“Did you just _find_ him down there?! What the hell do we do with him?!” 

But he had an idea. 

“Quickly. Leave the gear here, we can get it later. We need to do this before he wakes up!”   
Leo didn’t question him as he picked up the kid, and stormed down the mountain at full speed. Just ran along.   
It wasn’t long before they were in the city.   
Luckily, there wasn’t anyone to see them, and the place they were going was on the outskirts of town. 

* * *

  
The police station was exactly as he remembered it.   
After Christine fell, he’d ran back to the car, and after tears and coughs and many explanations, Bruce had immediately driven him down to the police station.   
That day, there hadn’t been anyone in the city either. There was no one to see a little kid running up to the reception desk, shouting for help while bawling his eyes out.   
The policeman behind the desk hadn’t paid much attention to him either. His job was just to make sure people didn’t jaywalk in front of his car, and make it seem like he had control of everything in the drowsy town.   
After all, they were just a little suburb to a bigger city, nothing could go wrong there, right? 

Now, Jeffrey was almost thankful it was like that. 

“What are you doing?” Leo hissed at him, as he stopped at the pavement in front of the little station.   
“What the hell are you thinking man?!” 

They couldn’t hand over the kid directly. That would cause way too many questions. Questions he couldn’t answer.   
Maybe he shouldn’t have done what he did. But at that point, there was no going back. 

He gently placed the kid on the little step that led up to the door.   
There, he looked almost peaceful. With his snow-white hair, ( _was that dyed?)_ and the pale skin that didn’t look like it had ever seen the light of day.   
He was still sleeping, and for some reason, he found himself brush the long hair out of his eyes.   
_I hope you’ll have a good life._ He thought, before spinning around, grabbing the sleeve of Leo’s long jacket, and bolting back towards the mountain. 

Looking back at the mountain, from which he had stolen a life, he could almost hear the cries of a mother, travelling through the wind.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, a character that I spent way too much time on, who will probably be mentioned like, two times, and then just forgot. Sigh.  
> I told ya I would (Eventually) post another chapter! School has been a lot, but I have this entire story planned out, so now it's just actually getting myself together! Hurray!
> 
> This story is like the illegitimate child who I am very proud of, but can't show off to the people I know.
> 
> I am sure you know who Christine is. Y'all are smart. You'll figure it out!


	3. Best Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey, you look new here  
> So let me be clear  
> You probably won't last long
> 
> Don't look at me so  
> I really don't know  
> Neither of us are that strong
> 
> -Shy Sings: Your Best (only) Friend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am back! This is a shorter chapter, but I actually really like it, because I finally get to express the inner sass that I've always wanted to release.  
> Also, I've actually read it through this time, so it might actually be good!

If you looked at Chrotta as an outsider, it definitely seemed like the crappiest dump of a city you’d ever have the displeasure of dealing with. 

It was like the entire thing consisted of oozing factories and depressingly dull neighborhoods, with streets so straight and narrow that it almost hurt to look at. The whole thing was like something taken straight out of some shitty dystopian novel. 

This city was everything you’d ever hate and more. Filled with the lowest of scum, the absolute worst place for any sensible human being to grow and develop.   
And you wouldn’t be wrong. 

It was like the entire thing had been designed by some guy who longed for the sweet release of death, and just wanted to make everyone else feel the same way.   
There was nothing interesting or likeable about the city. There were no parks, no city center, not even a cheap shopping mall to distract from the awful world they lived in. 

The nearest mountain range was almost an eight-hour drive away, and almost no one owned a car, so that dream was damn near impossible. The sea was even further away, which was probably lucky for everything else, since the poor fish already had it bad enough before some supercity decided to kick in and kill the last few species of marine life. 

Now, you might ask why people even bothered to live there. Why couldn’t they just pack up everything they owned and move away for good?   
The answer to that question is quite simple, my friend.   
Like most other disasters in human history, it was all about money. 

You remember those factories I mentioned earlier? The ones that made the sky grey with pollution and cut the average life expectancy of anyone in a 3o kilometer radius with about five years? 

They were the biggest car manufactures in the country. 

So of course, everything that I just told you about, it didn’t matter. Because no matter how shitty your life in this place got, you had to hold on to the hope that one day, you’d have enough cash to move somewhere far, far away and never look back. 

Chrotta was where you went if you failed at everything else. Around the country, it’d almost become a ghost story for the kids that thought they could get away with doing absolutely jack-shit in school. 

“ _If you don’t get a higher grade on your next assignment, you’ll go to_ _Chrotta!”_   
_“My mom said, that if you go to Chrotta, your teeth will fall out and you’ll go blind!”_   
_“Chrotta is the place where failure breeds and thrives, so stay on the right_ _eous_ _path_ _, and never stray_ _.”_

Well, I mean, they weren’t wrong. 

It really was the place where everything unwanted, the lowlifes, the poor, the hobos...   
(The orphans...)   
Where everything unwanted gathered and mixed, just managing to scrape by with the little income they had. 

It was where they sent him. 

Because he didn’t fit into their picture-perfect downtown suburbia. He was a pest, so they got rid of him.

Sent him to where all pests belong. 

* * *

In the Steppingstone Orphanage. If you’d been unlucky enough to wander under its leaking roof, walk down the crappy wooden stairs that might just have collapsed any minute, and if you were actually brave enough to set foot in the rat infested basement, then you might have seen him. 

Back then, he really didn’t look like anything special.   
A scrawny, scared kid wasn’t anything new around there. Everything that might’ve made him stand out in the dark basement was covered in either soot or oversized clothing, shielding a little frail body from the cold of the basement. 

His pale hair, sticking out in tufts from his hood, looked more grey than white, and his blue eyes were dulled by the tears silently streaming down his cheeks. 

God. Even though it was summer, they hadn’t even bothered to give him a proper jacket. 

But still, even though no one else did, she found him.   
I mean, I have to give the girl some credit. It isn’t exactly every six-year-old who’ll just wander into a dark basement, and then immediately proceed to seek out the dark figure sitting in a corner, crying.   
Actually, now that I’m describing it, I realize this sounds like something straight out of a horror movie. I mean, just think about it:   
Young girl goes into the unused basement under her orphanage. Sees a crying kid in the other end. Immediately goes up to him. Then BOOM! Possessed! 

Ah, that would have been fun. But unfortunately, I would’ve been lying if I said that that’s what happened.   
The dull light from the upstairs made her orange t-shirt glow in the dark. It contrasted neatly to her tan skin and brown hair, cut short just above the chin.   
She was just as messy to look at as him. The difference was just that she wore her oversized t-shirt and bagged jeans with a pride that only someone who knew exactly who they were, and what they were, could pull off. 

It was like the kid couldn’t even feel fear. She just walked straight up to him, and lightly tapped the crying kid on the shoulder.   
But, now that I think about it. Stupidity isn’t that far removed from bravery, is it? 

“Hey. Hey! You’re new around here, right?” She said to him. Not caring by the way he flinched and crumbled in on himself.   
After a second, she seemed to take his silence as a ‘yes’.   
“Me too. What’s your name?   
He still didn’t answer her, but she wouldn’t just give up without a fight.   
“My name is Natasha, but you can just call me Tash. Or Tasha. Whatever, I don’t care.”   
Finally, he raised his head and revealed a face full of shadows and fear.   
It was just to look at her. But still, her face beamed up, almost like sh’d finally gotten what she wanted.   
There was another short pause, but then she spoke again.   
“Were they mean to you, just because you broke that vase?” No answer. She should’ve been expecting it by now.   
She scuffed, but kept talking.   
“They don’t matter. I didn’t like that piece of shit anyway.”   
Then, something weird happened.   
The fear in his eyes almost seemed to fade and disappear. His eyes softened, and for a second, he actually looked like a five-year-old again.   
The girl, Natasha, saw it too, and the little twitch in the corner of her mouth turned into a full-on grin. You could count the number of teeth she’d knocked out.   
“Will you tell me your name _now_?” She said as she offered her left hand to him.   
After a moment of hesitation, a soft smile formed on his lips, and he took her hand by the wrist. 

“Sariel.” He said, as she pulled him up from the floor. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've noticed, this narrator might be a bit unusual for this story, but don't worry, they're well thought out, and is actually one of my favourite parts of this story, because it's really rare that I get an opportunity like this!


	4. Weird Dreams And Weird Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We swam a sea  
> Of pretty sights and chandelier skies  
> I swore I could feel you breathe  
> It was all so real to me
> 
> -Don't Wake Me Up, The Hush Sound

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: Wow. Summer break. I better get working on that story that I'm so passionate about so people don't think I've abandoned it!
> 
> Family vacation + Laziness + Writers Block: ALlOw uS tO InTRoDuCE OUrSeLVEs

The first dream was always, well, _alright._

It always came randomly, whenever he least expected it, but it wasn’t exactly _unwelcome._

Nothing _actually_ happened in the dream , and that was exactly why it was so ... well, _okay._

It was always the same. He would be lying in the same cave. On the same flowers. With the same clothes. In the same body. 

From where he laid, he could spot the tiny snippet of blue sky so far above him.   
A little ray of sunlight had managed to make its way all the way down there, and if he closed his eyes, he could almost feel the warmth from the bright sun on his face. 

In that dream, he could close his eyes and just let the world flow by without him. That was what made it so nice. To just be able to escape everything. 

Now, he knew that he couldn’t get up from the ground, because then the dream would end, and he would abruptly be woken up again.   
However, he hadn’t known that when he had that dream for the first time. 

As soon as he recognized the place, he got up, and began bolting as fast as his little legs could keep up with him towards the door. Maybe he thought that it was somehow reality, and he could make it all the way back to her. Frankly, I have no clue what he was thinking.   
All that I know, was that his body immediately skidded to a halt when he tried to run, and the dream scenario violently disappeared into a grey mist. 

Now, he’d learned that the best way to just keep the dream going, was pretending that he wasn’t even there. 

* * *

Of course, there was also the _other_ reoccurring dream. 

I still don’t get how he kept falling for it. Because it always seemed too good to be true, and lo and behold, it always was. 

I should probably give you a bit more context. 

… 

Well, where do I even begin? 

By now, you’ve probably picked up that something sketchy is going on, but I am not here to tell you about that. Not yet. 

But just in this dream, I’ve never had any influence on what he did. Ever. I’ve always been a passive standby. I have never had any effect. 

But I shouldn’t be able to tell you what he felt, but I still can, and I don’t know why. 

I should only be able to tell you about what I saw. 

… 

The dream started, as always, when he woke up in Her arms. 

Well, I shouldn’t say “woke up”, because he didn’t. Just like the dream wasn’t a dream. It was a memory, and I wasn’t part of it. 

She was sitting on the floor, and he was sitting in her lap.   
She was holding a guitar that looked like it’d seen better days, but one She still held with an easy grace that expressed so many years of practice. 

She was playing a calm melody, one that echoed on the walls, and were thrown back to them with its melodic notes.   
From where he was sitting, he couldn’t see much more than a few of the purple walls in the hallway around them, and of course the backside of the guitar. 

But he just wouldn’t look _up_ at Her. 

He desperately, desperately wanted to. He _just_ wanted to look _up._ To get a single glance of what S he’d looked like . To get a _single_ chance to take in Her appearance and compare them to each other. 

To make sure She actually existed. That She wasn’t just some cruel illusion his brain had come up with to cope. 

But in the end, he never succeeded. 

Instead, his tiny, five-year-old fingers did their best to reach over to the other side of the guitar, and tap-tap-tapped away to make a melody of his own. 

A minute or two went by with his failed attempts at playing the guitar, and something unexpected happened. 

She chuckled. 

She _chuckled._

That, was definitely, _definitely_ not supposed to happen. That never, ever-ever _ever_ happened.   
So why did it change. Why did it happen now? 

At first, he wasn’t sure if he had imagined it, or if She had actually said something. 

“ _Oh, sweetheart,_ _”_ She said, and he felt a soft hand brush away a stray lock of hair from his face.   
“ _Here, let me help you with that._ _”_

He raised his head. Let his gaze flow from her long brown hair, to the shirt that looked like a dress where she’d cut of the sleeves with a pair of... kitchen scissors. Or something. All the way up to Her face _that-_

That wasn't there? 

I don’t mean it as an exaggeration, or a metaphor. I mean _it wasn’t there._ Where Her face had been supposed to be, there was only the thin mist that’d made his dreams fall apart so many times before. 

Suddenly, it felt like something took him and _yanked_ him out of the dream. 

* * *

After that, everything went very, very fast. 

One second, he was _just about to see Her-_   
And the next, he woke up by slamming, face first, into a large pile of snow.   
Outside.   
That was certainly a problem. 

I actually suppose he got pretty lucky, because a meter or two to either side, and there wouldn’t have been a convenient pile of snow to fall into, and I highly doubt that the Steppingstone Orphanage had the budget to afford a pair of dentures for him. 

Now the question was just how he’d even gotten there. 

I mean, _magic_ had of course happened before in his life. But it turned out, that randomly raising the ground under your own feet tended to cause some pretty serious problems in the human world. Especially since no one else seemed to hold any kind of special abilities. 

Thankfully, he got the hint before anyone seemed to catch up on what happened. Besides, ever since he left his home, it was like the magic had, well... Disappeared? No, not really, because it was definitely still there, as evidenced by, well, _this._   
_It just felt weaker._

Anyways, we should probably get back to the rest of the story. 

Suddenly, he realized just how damn _cold_ the snow was, and he quickly pushed himself up on his elbows. 

It was night. But a lone streetlight lit up the empty street. 

You could say a lot of things about Chrotta. It was dirty. It was shameful. It was overrun with sickness and poverty. But at least you were never alone in the city.   
It was so packed, that just to move through the streets could cost you a run in with a local gang member, a wallet, and if you were especially unlucky, a jacket or your shoes.   
During the day, you could get away with virtually anything. A mugging. Harassment. Even pulling a gun out on some innocent bystander was common. It meant you always had to be at the edge of your seat to survive, but it also meant that blending in with the crowd became ten times easier. Nothing was unexpected. Everyone was looking out for themselves, and therefore no one had an eye on you.   
During the night, however, totally different rules were set in place. 

There was no official curfew in the city. The local government, and what was left of the police force, plus various vigilantes, didn’t have a slip of that kind of control. But there might as well have been one.   
Clouds of smoke from the factories made it almost impossible for the slimmest bit of moonlight to ever sink to touch the ground, and light the slightest bit of street up. Couple that with the fact that most of the city’s lamp posts were either blown out, or years of faulty wiring and frequent power-outs, had meant that the damn things finally drew their last breaths and died.   
During the night, hobos, random muggers, and some of the harsher gangs in Chrotta ruled the city.   
If you had as much as a penny on you. If you stepped on the wrong branch. If you moved too quickly. If you moved too slowly. Anything out of the ordinary could spark attention. 

And attention was the last thing anyone needed in that blasted city. 

A single lone streetlight lit the corner of Jackson and Ebott Road up.   
He recognized the corner, luckily, it wasn’t in the complete other end of the city, but it would still be a pain to get back to the orphanage.   
Fortunately, one of the side-effects of exclusively living in one city your entire life, was knowing it like the back of your pocket.   
He just had to watch out.   
It was winter, so while he snuck around corners and against outworn brick walls, the stiffening cold made Sariel hold his arms tight enough against his body for it to hurt.   
He was only wearing his pajamas, as he hadn’t expected a dive out in the snow to be the first thing he’d do in the morning, but fortunately, his pajamas consisted of a pair of jeans that Jason had found while dumpster-diving in one of the nicer areas in town, and pulled after him to soak up the half-melted snow on the pavement, and a hoodie that Tasha had somehow managed to steal from one of the dumber gang-members, and had a hole in the shape of a bullet through the neck. 

While he pulled his feet over the cracked pavement, something inside him wondered about how he’d ended up there. About how it was even possible.   
Was it magic? Probably. But something so.... _big_ had never, ever happened before.   
It was always the small things. Ripping up a few floorboards when he got stressed. Ripping an old shelf off of the wall when he’d been trying to get to the sweets. Once, he even set his hat on fire after being chased by a vendor he’d stolen a sandwich from. Never, ‘fall into a pile of snow in the dead of night.’   
All the other things were small. Easy to excuse. It was few who actually believed in magic anymore, and that made it easy to hide.   
Of course, some knew about the whole ‘magic’ ordeal.   
Tasha was fully convinced he was a magician, and took it pretty well when he’d had his first slip-up around her. She’d stopped looking at him in that funny Tasha-way the third time he’d launched his plate through the room.   
Jason was more... skeptical, to say the least.   
When there wasn’t a slip up, or no trace left from one, he would simply act like it didn’t even exist. That Sariel could just throw things unusually far for an eight-year-old, and carried a lighter with him everywhere he went.   
Even when he saw it himself, it was like he wouldn’t admit what was happening. 

He didn’t know how long it took him to walk home, but what he did know, was that when someone finally opened the door for him, the big clock next to the staircase in the common room showed the time to be around three in the morning.   
(Though I don’t trust that clock, it’d fallen down from the wall too many times to be reliable anymore)   
It was one of the crucially underfunded staff members who let him in, and her first thing to do after spluttering about something called hypothermia, before she immediately left him alone on one of the sofas that might have been green a long, long time ago, but were now more of a grey-ish shade of brown, and stormed up the stairs.   
It didn’t take long before something that vaguely sounded like a stampede over the African savannah bolted down the stairs, and he dizzily turned his head to look for the sound. 

He didn’t really comprehend what was happening for the first few seconds.   
Sure, he _saw_ Jason running down the stairs at full speed. And sure, he heard him swearing like a sailor all the way. But everything was just moving so fast, and he couldn’t keep up.   
At that point, Jason wasn’t much more than thirteen, but the bags under his eyes still stood out against his pale face, and his black, fuzzy hair didn’t look like it’d been touched by a hairbrush since Sariel first came to the orphanage.   
He wasn’t wearing much more than Sariel. A long-sleeved shirt. Unfashionably ripped jeans, and a pair of knock-off converse shoes he’d gotten for 70 cents and a pack of skittles from a junkie who didn’t know what he was doing.   
However, it also looked like he’d thrown an old leather jacket, with some old band name over his back. 

“Jesus Christ Sariel!” And that, ladies and gentlemen, was how Jason started most of his conversations.   
“What the hell is this?! Why were you outside at...” Jason quickly glanced at the suspicious clock on the wall.”3:30 in the morning?!” 

Jason didn’t stop to hear his answer, just pulled his arm over his own shoulder and pulled him back towards the stairs.   
While Jason dragged them up two or three floors, Sariel let his mind wander.   
Of course, the first thing it jumped to, was the dream.   
What had happened? Why was it different now, after three years up here?   
And why had it thrown him out like that?   
He tried to think of _anything_ that had changed the past three days. Two weeks. A month.   
The headache _slammed_ into him with a brute force he’d _never_ felt paralleled before.   
For a moment, it was like every single memory was wiped. Given a clean slate. Erased. 

… 

No... 

... 

No, because he still remembered. 

In fact, he remembered every _single_ detail. 

From the mosquito bite he’d gotten on his left hand three days ago, to all the finest details of the woman he’d bumped into on the street, forgetting to look where he was going. To the rainbow that had faintly glossed over the city on a particularly rainy day. 

It was just that, it felt like a thousand identical memories had compiled in his head, and when he’d tried to poke at them. Tried to remember anything that had happened, it was like a dam that flooded and brushed the ground away under him.   
He didn’t have any more time to think about the weird jumps in his memory, because just then, Jason threw open the door to the boys’ dormitory. 

All around them, thirteen boys ranging from six to twelve years old, most with some form of ragged plushies, did their best to keep the warmth under paper-thin blankets, while the wind howled through the leaking roof.   
The orphanage was maybe the oldest building in the entire city, and the boys’ dormitory didn’t look like it’d been other maintenance since Sariel was born.   
The dormitory was on the top floor, and even now, on a relatively quiet winter-night, the windows still rattled in their frames with help from the wind, even letting a few snowflakes scour through the room. 

The bunkbeds were all made from the same light, cheap aluminum, and the only thing that distinguished the beds from each other, were the various personal objects placed on or under them.   
Of course, I suppose that the boys that slept in them mattered a little too.   
Luckily, none of the kids let a mere slam of a door that didn’t even weigh enough to kill them, disturb their few hours of peaceful rest, and Jason managed to successfully guide him to the only bunkbed that still sat empty. 

It was actually Jason himself who’d made sure that Sariel got his own bed. After he’d fried the side of the bed in a single unfortunate incident, he’d been lucky that there’d been an extra bed to move the living lighter to. 

Jason frowned seeing him shiver under the thin blanket, and after he’d realized that piling his own, and the top bunk’s, on top of him wasn’t enough to warm the white-haired boy up either, he’d pulled of the leather jacket he had swung over his shoulders, and wrapped it tightly around Sariel as well.   
“That old thing was getting too small for me anyway.” Jason said.   
He knew that that wasn’t true, but he doubted Jason would accept it if he tried to give it back. 

* * *

The next morning, Sariel woke up with a pounding headache.   
Looking around, he saw that all the other boys were already gone. Probably headed to breakfast, and just as he tried to get up, Jason walked in with a steaming bowl.   
“Sit down, you have a fever.” He said.   
He very much didn’t. The pounding in his head was just as painful when he stood up, as when he sat down, and except for that, he felt as good as he could get.   
Besides, he never got fevers anyways. Not even the time someone pushed him into the fountain at the park had his temperature raised by a single degree, but Jason just seemed to ignore that. 

Jason let him sit up to eat, though he piled a few pillows behind his back.   
“There’s gonna be a new kid next week.” Jason said.   
He blinked, shocked. It’d been two years since anyone new had come to the orphanage, and that’d been a girl who left less than two months later.   
“Really?” He was curious, and for a moment, he almost forgot the night before.   
“Yeah, I know, right?” Jason answered him, a smirk hinting at the side of his mouth.   
“It looks like the days of having your own bed are over.”   
He blew a raspberry at Jason. Despite his reserved nature, the dark-haired boy did occasionally manage to make a joke.   
That didn’t mean they were good, but at least they were jokes. 

“Do you know who it is?” He was curious, and it shined through his voice.   
Jason shrugged.   
“Nope,” Jason said, and sat down at the end of the mattress, leaning against one of the bed’s support beams, careful to kick of his ragged shoes before propping them up next to Sariel.   
“They just said he’d be arriving next Sunday.”   
At least he had the time to mentally prepare himself for _another_ kid in the orphanage. 

He ate the rest of the porridge in bed, making sure that he didn’t spill any of the precious food on the side of the bowl.   
He didn’t know why, but all the food Here had a strange, bland taste to it. It didn’t help that the charity funded porridge was among some of the most tasteless fucking food on the planet, and could probably make broccoli look like one of those candies that you’re convinced has enough sweeteners, dye, and radioactive waste to kill a small child. 

Not even the time he and Tasha had scraped together enough change to buy a bag of sweets from the nicer end of town, had he found anything overwhelming about the sugar, though Tasha had been more than happy to finish the bag for him.   
He didn’t think their conversation would continue, but Jason decided to speak up right as he finished the food.   
“So, Sari,” Jason began.   
“How did you even get out there?”   
Uh oh. 

Magic had always been a... sensitive subject in the orphanage. Especially with Jason. 

Sure, it wasn’t exactly _normal._ But for the most part, kids around him ignored it and moved on with their lives.   
Tasha had been a bit more interested.   
When he’d first shown it to her, when he had ignited the fire in his skin, and watched them dance over his palms, she’d looked like a child staring at a Christmas tree. Completely in awe.   
She had even tried to do it herself a couple of times, tried to replicate the strange feeling that bloomed in his heart every time he used it. But in the end, the only thing Tasha had managed to create was a single spark that fluttered and died after a few seconds.   
With time, it became less and less about the magic, and more and more talk about the few memories he had of There.   
She never said much during those conversations. Just listened very carefully to every little detail, and he had a feeling she trusted him. 

Jason was a whole other story.   
It wasn’t exactly that he didn’t _believe_ him. He’d seen what he could do. But there was always a form of... dismissal? Kind of? Surrounding him.   
Every time he saw something Sariel had _done,_ his eyes would go blank, and he’d turn his head. It was like he wouldn’t accept that it actually existed, and that it was just something he’d made up.   
Sariel had tried to tell him about There, but Jason would just stare at him with a blank expression until he stopped.   
And that made it so, _so_ much harder to talk to him. 

In fact, it was so difficult he forgot to answer. 

“Hey.”   
Jason had leaned forward, and was shaking his shoulder with a concerned expression.   
“Are you okay? You look lost.”   
“M’ fine. I just... I dunno.”   
Jason leaned back; brow furrowed once again. 

_How bad could it be to tell him? You_ _trust him, right?_ He felt something inside him whisper. Me. Probably. 

Finally, the bubble that had swelled up inside him, clogging his throat and trapping the words, burst, and the words came flowing out of him.   
“It was magic! I... I don’t know exactly what happened, but it was definitely magic!” 

But uh oh, that wasn’t the right move either. 

It was like the words, muffled and chaotic, destroyed something between them. Something that tied the air together, and made the words and narrative flow freely. The words were needles that popped and plucked from the air, and left all of the worst things between them behind. 

Jason’s reaction was immediate.   
His furrowed brow collapsed. As did his tense posture.   
He stopped gritting his teeth, and let out another deep sigh.   
Right in front of him, Jason just fell apart.   
He placed his head in his hands, and Sariel could see him pulling at his the strands of hair that stuck out from under the worn beanie on his head.   
He couldn’t see Jason’s face.   
Still, he tried to save the conversation in a last-ditch effort.   
“I swear! I don’t know what happened, I was just _there._ I just woke up. I promise! I didn’t do anything! I didn’t do any-” He frantically tried to tell him. 

“ **_Don’t._ ** ” **** Jason’s voice was alarmingly quiet, and Sariel felt a sudden urge to back away, before he remembered he was sitting against a wall. 

“ ** _Just, don’t._** ” He could see Jason’s face now, and by _God_ did he wish he couldn’t.   
His eyes were so _different_ from what they had been a moment ago. Or he just hadn’t noticed just how _furious_ Jason could be.   
His eyes reminded Sariel of the street-cats that crawled through dumpsters and hunted rats. They were almost closed, and the only thing he could see was his dark green irises.   
The pupils were small. Focused. Full of years of pain and rage and an _inhuman_ will to _keep surviving._ No matter what the cost may be.   
Jason’s mouth was carved into a snarl, and his face was pulled back and forth by the twitching muscles until he was almost unrecognizable.   
He didn’t blink. And it didn’t seem like he needed to.   
Suddenly, he let go. His mouth flattened. His eyes seized and opened even wider than before, as if he realized what he had just done, and the rest of his face fell back into a recognizable shape.   
Just as quickly as it had come, the moment was over.   
Again, a sigh, but more relaxed this time, like he was trying to control himself. 

Neither of them said anything, until Jason finally turned around, and stared him dead in the eye.   
“Sari.” Jason said, sounding way more exhausted than any thirteen-year-old should be.   
“Can you promise me something? Just for me.”   
Jason was looking directly at him, and I felt my gut turn and twist, just by looking at him.   
He must’ve felt it too, because almost unconsciously, he tried to scoot back on the bed. Tried to get away from him.   
Still, he nodded, and Jason continued.   
“Please. Keep... _it_ down. Stow it away. Anything.”   
Sariel was too stunned to speak. And I felt the fear creep up my back.   
What did he mean? How were we supposed to keep it down?   
“Don’t talk about it to anyone. Don’t tell _anyone_ what you can do. Okay?” Jason continued. His voice growing ever colder by the second.   
“Just pretend like it doesn’t exist.” _What._   
_“_ And _please. I beg you.”_   
“Just try to have a normal life. Right here with me and Tasha.”   
_“This_ is your family.”   
“ _This_ is where you belong.” 

But that was where he got it wrong.   
Time after time, day after day, _accident after accident._   
No matter what happened. How big it was. Or what it meant. He kept insisting that it was _Here._ That it was _H_ _ere_ he belonged.   
But what he couldn’t see, what he couldn’t _understand_ was that it’d _never_ been Here.   
He didn’t belong with Chrotta. He didn’t belong with the orphanage. He didn’t belong with a rusty bunk-frame.   
In some other life, where things might have turned out different. Where someone had chosen another path, he might have belonged under the sun. He might have been able to breathe in the fresh air where he knew She wasn’t Here.   
He already _knew_ where he needed to be.   
He didn’t belong up Here.   
He belonged with Her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good news! Next chapter we will introduce a certain someone to further this plot!
> 
> (I'm so sorry that I'm dragging all this out. I promise I know what I'm doing. Kinda.)
> 
> Please give criticism! Because I'm hella pathetic, I need to have pointed out what I need to work on!

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed it! I will definitely be continuing this, but it's probably going to take a while!
> 
> Feel free to leave comments! I thrive off of feedback!


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